


The Novice

by Anonymous



Series: A Nest at the End of the World [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Vulva (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Body Worship, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Time, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Other, Praise Kink, Pregnant Aziraphale (Good Omens), Top Crowley (Good Omens), gender euphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-20 02:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22074787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Aziraphale's current assignment isn't one Crowley can take for him, as willing as he is. And it requires a few changes.Crowley just wants to cheer Aziraphale up before he goes.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: A Nest at the End of the World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642321
Comments: 37
Kudos: 266
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

Very few doors, as a rule, were ever truly closed to Crowley. Aziraphale's certainly never had been before-- and it isn't now, though it's closed to the rest of the world. He finds him in a bedroom that never sees any sleep, standing before his mirror and looking rather critically at a new outfit.

"Hullo, Aziraphale. New look?" Crowley greets, slipping in and coming to take a look of his own. "It's very nice."

"I'm glad _you_ think so." Aziraphale says miserably, smoothing a hand over the deep green velvet.

"You don't like it?" He comes closer, picks up the skirt to see the way it drapes when held delicately out at the side, as Aziraphale might when on stairs. "I suppose the color's something of a departure for you, but it suits you."

And... they look a handsome couple, in the mirror. Crowley at Aziraphale's back, as if he were a husband helping his wife to dress, as if they belonged like this...

"No, I don't like it." Aziraphale pouts. Well, Crowley has dealt with a pouting Aziraphale before, and he's never kept a pout long, once Crowley has been determined to cheer him.

"How about lunch?" He purrs, leaning in closer. Oh yes, they do look a handsome couple. Aziraphale's face is not much changed, in truth-- most of him is not much changed, to fit the dress. And Crowley has always privately thought that they looked well together, though he never dared say it in so many words. But in the past, when they have gone out somewhere together, no one has looked at them and assumed, and he would so like for people to assume... to see them and think that Crowley might have the pleasure each night of bedding the soft and lovely creature at his side, to imagine that he is as attentive a lover as he is a dining companion. Not that he expects strangers in public to stop and fantasize about his sex life just because he's out with such a beauty, but they would at least expect that they had sex and leave it at that, rather than assume a dry friendship. And he would be well within his place, as Aziraphale's companion, to snarl at anyone who looked too long, who ogled all the points of interest which were Crowley's alone to ogle. The dress sadly obscures some of his usual favorite things to ogle, but it offers brand new ones.

"I don't really feel like it, Crowley." Aziraphale moves away from him-- that's a first. He normally quite likes a bit of attention, even if he puts up a respectable protest-- he normally likes to have Crowley squeeze in close, touch his clothing. He normally likes to be fussed over.

"Dessert, then. Lovely little place has just opened up on my street, I really think you'd like it. Puffs of pastry big as you like, mountains of cream-- and fresh berries, just _glistening._ So sweet, so delicate... if you're really not hungry, it's barely anything at all."

"I don't want to go _out_ ." Aziraphale snaps, and then his face falls dramatically. "Oh-- oh, I'm sorry. It isn't you, my dear, you're very kind to offer. It's just... well, you've noticed..." He gestures to himself. "And don't pretend you haven't, even with your glasses on I've seen you glance at my... _decolletage_."

"Yes." Crowley nods, uncertain. Had he not made enough fuss about the new shape and the nice dress? Was he meant to talk Aziraphale into liking the dress, when he'd expressed doubts? Was he meant to flatter him more on the color? And all right, so he'd given the breasts more than a passing glance, but in his defense, they're new! Fashions being what they are, they're well-displayed, too.

"I've been given an assignment, and I've got to go like this, see." He continues, pacing. "Oh, Crowley, I hate it! I thought it would be nothing at all, and I know you've done it, and-- But then I changed my shape for it and the dress was delivered and all the underpinnings and I... I _hate_ it!"

"I'll go." Crowley promises, crossing to Aziraphale, stopping him by taking one plump little hand in his. Smaller... smaller than it usually is, just the slightest bit. Aziraphale is shorter, Crowley wonders if it's that he's without shoes or if it's part of the alterations he'd made to his vessel. It's not a great difference, at any rate. "Aziraphale, if you hate it so much, I'll go."

"You can't. I'm to go into a convent, Crowley, it's not safe for you. And I think they'd notice if you couldn't stand on consecrated ground."

He'd like to argue that he'll find a way and do it anyway, but he knows Aziraphale is right-- some jobs, they can't take for each other. "Ah, well... You wouldn't want to turn me loose on a bunch of nuns, that's the real reason you won't let me do it. Afraid I'd have them all giving up their vows."

"Yes, that's exactly it." Aziraphale rolls his eyes, but a smile teases at the corner of his lips at last. "Oh... I know I'm being ridiculous. None of the other angels I've spoken to think it's a very big thing, putting on another sex for a while. It's just... that's all it is, up there. It's fashion. And some develop their preferences, but... at the end of the day they're all angels, and angels haven't got a sex, or angels are our own sex, and I-- I thought I would be the same. Only I'm not. I've been here so long, and living among people, and I _like_ being a man, Crowley. It makes me happy. It makes me happy when I do my shopping and the baker and the grocer call me Master Fell. It makes me happy when I go to see my tailor and he shows me what all the fine gentlemen are clamoring for. It makes me happy to be... nodded to, the way people nod to each other, you know, like I really am just a kindly gentleman of a certain sort, to be afforded some respect and kindness and to mostly just be ignored, I suppose, but-- but people think that I'm a very specific sort of human, and I _like_ the human that they think I am! I like to be him! I like to be asked my opinion on philosophers and poets and plays, and to be left alone to feed the ducks with no one deciding it is a tragedy if I am unmarried, and-- and I like the way my body looked before. I know it wasn't human and it wasn't just the same as theirs, but it was still mine and I still liked it."

"You're still you." Crowley touches his cheek, gentle. "Aziraphale... you're still you. It's only a disguise you put on, for work, for a little while, but the real you... the real you does his shopping and goes to his tailor and feeds his ducks and has opinions on the theatre-- I mean, you know, the real you-- You haven't changed. Not deep down."

"I don't know." He frowns, gaze downcast. "You like me this way."

Oh. _Oh_. Aziraphale hadn't been cross he hadn't paid him enough attention-- he'd not liked being paid too _much_. He'd wanted Crowley to say the dress didn't suit him very well, that the change wasn't quite him. He'd hoped Crowley would see through the disguise and see his unhappiness and say he liked him better as his ordinary self. Crowley wants to understand what Aziraphale feels, but for him, how he feels and how he's perceived have so little to do with each other. It's useful to be a man more often than not, and so that's what he does, and he likes the way he looks as one, but it doesn't grieve him to be otherwise. Still, what he does understand is that he's made a bit of a mess of things.

"I like you any way you come." He shrugs. "I doesn't mean I don't like you the usual way. It's just... a bit of novelty to see you do something different, when you're usually-- er--"

"Set in my ways?"

"Consistent."

"You rather like all this." Aziraphale accuses, gesturing to his chest again. Well... no denying that. "You're... _attracted_ to this version of me."

Crowley blinks. "Sorry-- did you think I wasn't attracted to you before?"

"I certainly never caught you ogling me before!"

"Yeah, that's because I normally do all my ogling from the rear! Angel, where have you _been_? Oh, since _antiquity_ , I've been attracted to you. Since before I knew what attraction felt like! Knowing you is what's shaped everything I think about what's attractive to start with, this is just... you know. I mean, I-- And it's fine if you don't feel-- I mean, if you'd prefer I not--"

"Crowley." And he touches Crowley's hand this time, to stop him talking. "Have you truly?"

"Of course I have."

"Not because I look... different, now?"

"Just because you're you."

Aziraphale hesitates a moment, wonder coloring his face, pinking his cheeks and making his eyes sparkle. After some mental back-and-forth, he tucks himself in close, rests his head against Crowley's shoulder with a sigh, places a hand at his waist. It takes him time to relax once he's there, but relax he does. When Crowley strokes his hair, and wraps an arm around him, he relaxes.

"Crowley?"

"Yes, angel?"

"When you look at me, even like this... you really only see me?"

"Just you."

"Show me." He asks, and something in his voice is desperate and fierce and certain. "Show me myself. I could bear it for the length of this assignment if you could. I look in the mirror and I feel as if I've lost me. I couldn't even bear to wear the hat... In the convent I suppose it may be easier, but just now I can't seem to bear it."

Crowley nods, his voice lodged in his throat. He guides Aziraphale to sit at the foot of his bed, and perches beside him, taking his hand once more.

"You... are still yourself." He manages at last, tracing his fingertips over that hand. "Even before you changed yourself for the job, your hands weren't so different-- they've always been soft, like this. They've always been delicate and careful, and... and I've always longed to do this."

He kisses Aziraphale's knuckles, warm and lingering, makes him gasp at the forwardness of the gesture. No polite greeting, but sheer seduction. Aziraphale doesn't pull back, allows Crowley to turn that hand over in his and kiss his palm, just as passionately. Allows him to flick his tongue out against the pulse point of his wrist.

"Really..." He says, and he turns his face away, but not so quickly that Crowley doesn't see his smile. He kisses his way up along Aziraphale's velvet sleeve, finding a position where they fit quite neatly together, his hand at Aziraphale's waist to keep him close. "Oh-- oh, my dear!"

"And you sound like yourself." He grins, and teases at Aziraphale's neck until he laughs and gently shoves at him. "You've changed your voice very little. The way you laugh's still you. Here, look at me."

Aziraphale turns, though he looks suddenly shy at finding Crowley's face so close.

"Your eyes are the same." Crowley whispers, stroking his cheek. "You've smoothed away a few of the lines around them, but they're yours. No different from the eyes I've gazed into since that first day in Eden, when they captured my attention so fully. Your lips are no fuller and no pinker than when last I looked upon them and contemplated the way they might feel against my own. Your nose... actually, I _do_ miss your nose, but you haven't changed it _very_ much. Your chin looks the same. Those soft cheeks, exactly as they have been."

"How-- how long have you... _contemplated_ my lips?" Aziraphale asks, and he may be shy, but there is something of that slyness to him, the same as when he realizes he might gain some favor from Crowley. It's a look that often comes over him as they negotiate their Arrangement and whose turn it is to do what-- he will agree even when it isn't his turn, to take a job that will be unpleasant to Crowley, but only when he is offered some little thing in return, and he is so pleased at getting it each time, even if the trade is in Crowley's favor. If Crowley promises to treat him to some sweet or a drink, Aziraphale will glow and preen at the victory, and treat his own agreement to travel to some snow-bound misery to do Crowley's job for him as inconsequential.

"Oh, going on at least a couple of thousand years. At _least_."

"That's an awfully long time to wonder." Aziraphale sighs. "Don't you think?"

He knows Aziraphale well enough to know an invitation when he hears one-- and to know Aziraphale's invitations are always subtle. But the look in his eyes would be reassuring enough even if Crowley didn't know how to read between the lines with him, the way he leans in.

His arm slides around the back of Aziraphale's neck, his other hand slides up and down one side, he takes a moment just to taste the anticipation between them. Aziraphale clings to him, melts in his arms the moment their lips touch-- lips just as soft as Crowley dreamed they'd be, and Aziraphale is so responsive, so warm. He kisses him again, again, can't pull away from him for a moment. How has he existed so long without this? He gives Aziraphale's lower lip a swipe with his tongue, and Aziraphale's mouth opens to him. He holds him tighter, and Aziraphale does the same. If only they had nothing else to do, he could spend a hundred years just on kissing him. But Aziraphale has duties, and so does Crowley-- a duty to Aziraphale, to make him feel good about himself again.

"Thank you." He whispers, as they part at last. "My curiosity is satisfied, if not my desire. I shouldn't think my desire shall ever be fully satisfied."

"You serpent, you." Aziraphale says, and he does his preening again.

His shoulders are a little smaller, Crowley thinks, but not by much-- hard to tell in the present style. The last time Crowley saw so much of Aziraphale's chest, it had the sweetest downy fluff at the center, but with or without, he can't think of a place he'd rather lay his head.

"Let me get you out of this dress, if you don't like it." He whispers, and Aziraphale shivers and nods. Crowley kisses him again, before removing it to Aziraphale's wardrobe with a snap of his fingers. "There-- you already look a bit more yourself. Well... at least, you're back in your color."

"When you said 'get you out of this dress', I had imagined something a bit more-- er, that is..."

"Intimate?" Crowley grins. "Is that what you'd like?"

"You're not the only one who's spent a couple thousand years wondering." He squares his shoulders, gives Crowley the smug, cheeky little grin he pulls out whenever he manages to surprise him, or thinks he has. He may not be all confidence, but he's not all nerves, either.

"Well, here, let's get rid of this, then..." His grin widens as he begins unlacing Aziraphale's corset. Without the slight shaping from it, without the padded roll around his hips, there in only his chemise, he looks much more himself. He looks... "Oh-- oh, angel..."

"What?"

He slides from the bed, sinks to his knees before him. "You look so like you looked the first time I ever saw you. The first time I really, truly saw you. Oh, I'd seen you in glimpses before, but that day I saw you, not just through the trees, not in stolen moments, distance between us... there on the wall, before the clouds had blocked out the sun over you. You looked like this."

"Did I?" He beams, his hand floating to hover over his heart. He allows Crowley to direct his attention to his mirror. His hair is the same as it was, his face close enough that at a distance it may as well be the same. He tugs the chemise a little higher, and then it sits there, loose, covering any little differences to the body beneath.

"I thought you were beautiful." Crowley nods, wrapping a hand around Aziraphale's ankle. "I didn't know what to make of you yet, except you were beautiful, I wanted to know you..."

"And you." Aziraphale reaches down, brushing the hair back from Crowley's face, his touch lingering at Crowley's cheek. "When you approached me, you were... _arresting_. Your eyes were... I thought they were marvelous. You made me so nervous, but it made me feel alive. I never knew what that meant, feeling alive-- well, I never _was_ alive, not the way people are. But you made me feel as if I was a living thing, when you spoke to me."

Crowley lays his head against Aziraphale's knee, overwhelmed. He knows _exactly_ what Aziraphale means by that. He'd come alive during that first conversation, though it would take him years to understand the ways in which it affected him.

"Do you feel better?" He asks. It's safer than thinking too much on his feelings, on what it means to be alive, or to feel like you are.

"Yes, my dear. Much. I... I shall bear what I must. It's only a short while. Er-- you might... you might make me feel better yet, before we must part? It should mean a great deal to me. I should... I should like to think back fondly upon our time together, while I am at the convent without you. I should like to think you might think fondly of me."

"What an invitation for an angel to make to a demon." Crowley nuzzles at his knee, and the happiness that fills him, he's never felt the like of. Even when he walked in Heaven, he doesn't think he can have been so happy as Aziraphale makes him with a word-- with a suggestion.

"It is an invitation made in love, I do not think it wrongly made."

"It is an invitation accepted in love." He whispers, his hand sliding up Aziraphale's calf. He's never just held his calf before, but he doesn't imagine it would have been any different if he had done. He'd sat with his legs across Aziraphale's legs before. He has considered what it would be, to be bolder, to touch more. "If it is wrongly done, so be it."

"Crowley." And Aziraphale is breathless, he makes Crowley's name sound like a prayer. "I have never loved another as I love you. I do love you."

" _Aziraphale_. And I you. I love you. I could never love another, not as I do you. I know you, I would know you in any shape, I would know you with no shape at all. If you were without a vessel I would still know you, you would be beloved to me, Aziraphale."

He slides his hand higher, and his other hand joins it, pushing Aziraphale's chemise up around his knees, that he might kiss both of those, lips to bare skin this time.

"Your legs are the same. I've spent enough time admiring your calves, whenever fashion permits it." He smiles, shifting to wind himself more fully around Aziraphale's legs, to un-kneel so that when he folds his legs, they encircle Aziraphale's ankles. "They've always had this fine shape to them."

He pushes the chemise higher, releases Aziraphale's ankles so that he might spread his legs further, hands on his thighs. Such lovely, plush thighs... he admires the way his fingers sink in when he squeezes, and the way Aziraphale moans. So thick... there's a good layer of muscle beneath the fat, sturdy and strong, but it's the softness that entices, in Crowley's opinion. It's what makes Aziraphale's lap so welcoming, so cozy. Once, he'd rested there, he remembers-- centuries ago, millennia. He had been exhausted after something... some enormous use of his powers. Aziraphale had permitted it. Aziraphale had told him to rest, and protected him as he slept. Aziraphale had been a haven. And these had been his thighs, warm and supportive and soft. Crowley kisses them now, as he couldn't have kissed them then, in thanks for the safe bed they had made, and in worship for their beauty as well as for their use.

Aziraphale lifts himself up, tugging the chemise so that none of it is trapped beneath him, and Crowley rises up to help strip him of it entirely, and he needs to give himself a moment just to drink him in. 

“Crowley?”

“Mm?”

“You’re-- That is-- Am I… as you hoped?”

“You’re wonderful.” He takes Aziraphale’s hand, and guides him to stand. “Here, look… you’re the same old you, without all that.”

Aziraphale hesitates, before turning to the mirror, and Crowley moves to stand behind him-- where he can steal a look at that perfect round backside before pressing close-- to help him with the last leg of the journey re-finding himself.

The breasts, without the corset to push them up, are barely different from his chest as it was the last time Crowley saw it bare-- he always had those distinct swells of fat there, soft and squeezable, those same pink nipples. Aziraphale relaxes the longer he regards himself, finding the familiar. He doesn’t need Crowley to hold his hand and go over every little thing-- not that he’d seemed to mind being told he was ever himself-- he only needs the support, and the time to find his comfort. 

“I’m really not so different, am I?”

“No. Not at all.” Crowley smiles, and kisses his neck. 

“It’s the underpinnings that really… change the shape of me, more than I’ve changed. And… and when I dress at the convent, it won’t be with that-- that shape. Not the same way.” He smooths his hands down his sides, where his waist doesn’t nip in any more dramatically than it ever has. His hands land on Crowley’s, down at his hips, and he guides those to travel. Over the swell of his belly, soft and warm, the little fluff of silky hair beneath what isn’t quite a navel, but would pass for one if anyone saw him. Over his chest, to knead gently at him.

Down between his legs, where he hasn’t got anything just yet, but he still responds when Crowley’s hand massages there, palm pressing against a smooth, waiting mound, fingers sliding back along the blank crease.

“Go ahead.” Crowley whispers, giving into his own urges, rocking forward against the magnificent swell of Aziraphale’s buttocks, the warm and welcoming valley between. “Give me something here, let me please you.”

Aziraphale’s eyes flutter closed in concentration. Crowley gives him a little room in which to work, watches in the mirror as the pale, empty space there below a tuft of pale curls comes to life-- first, the blush rising to the skin, then the shape forming. 

“Oh.” He says, and dares a touch once it’s done. “I’d have thought you’d prefer…”

“I don’t know.” Aziraphale smiles, his head tilting back to rest on Crowley’s shoulder. “I rather like just this part. I don’t… I don’t think it’s the same. It’s private, just for us. The thing I don’t like is not recognizing myself, is having people treat me as someone I’m not, but… Well, I’m not used to having anything down there. In a sense it’s a bit easier to have the low-profile option. When I’d tried having the-- the other thing, you know, it was… I just prefer something nice and tidy like this. I don’t see how my sex should have any bearing on my… er, sex.”

“That’s fair. I like having mine, you know, even when I’m meant to be a lady. Feels more like my body that way. I don’t expect they need to match expectation. As long as you like it. I mean… I like anything so long as it’s you. Not like I’m… not like I’ve…” He glances away. “I don’t have anything to measure you against, either way.”

“Oh, Crowley.” He turns, his arms winding about Crowley, his body pressing close. Crowley watches their reflection a while longer, his arms around Aziraphale, the black of his sleeves stark against pale, rosy skin… the lines of Aziraphale’s back soft, his body gentle and generous. 

And that arse… He can’t resist snaking a hand down to grab a handful, and to watch himself doing it in the glass. Aziraphale hums against his neck, pressing even closer.

“You’re wearing too much.” He says, fingers walking up Crowley’s chest. “Crowley-- I haven’t, you know. Before this. But I’m ready to. I’ve always wanted it to be you-- I’ve never wanted it to be anyone else.”

Crowley unmakes his own clothes with a snap of the fingers, lifting Aziraphale up into his arms. Not that it’s even two steps back to the bed once he has him, but he thinks it counts for something, to carry him there. Certainly it pleases Aziraphale, who clings to him with a startled laugh. 

“All right.” Crowley drops him onto the bed, and gives him a moment to look, before following him down. “What do you think of me?”

“I think you look as lovely as you did the last time I saw you so, in Rome. Only I didn’t let myself look so long, then.” Aziraphale welcomes him into his arms. “I think you’re wonderful, dearheart. I really do.”

“How long will you be away?” He asks, nuzzling in at his throat, enjoying the sheer bliss of lying atop Aziraphale, so warm and soft. Enough strength beneath the softness to bear Crowley’s weight with no complaint. 

“I’ve been told my assignment may take me a year… but it could be less.” He adds hopefully, before Crowley can say anything. A year is not so long… they’ve gone longer without seeing each other-- back at the start, they could go an age without speaking, and it wouldn’t really hurt. Not really. Now, though…

“Do try and make it quick.” He smiles, caressing Aziraphale’s face. “Now that I find myself in your bed, the prospect of going so long without sharing it again is not one I much like. And when you come back from your time with the nuns, I shall have to treat you to a proper meal, and a bottle of something very nice. And dessert, don’t suppose nuns do dessert. Your side is all for deprivation.”

“It’s not _my side_ ’s doing if people have ideas about which earthly pleasures to give up.” Aziraphale huffs. 

There’s a curious sort of joy in working Aziraphale into a good huff, which is only matched by the absolute pleasure that is coaxing him back out of one. Crowley had always accomplished the latter with a bit of flattery and the odd treat or gift, but he finds it’s even more of a pleasure to do so with a kiss. A line of little pecks up from shoulder to ear has Aziraphale in a good mood, and that’s before he gets his tongue involved in the action, teasing his way along a soft jawline and to his waiting mouth. 

“You’ll wait for me?” Aziraphale asks, melting under every kiss. His hands travel Crowley’s back, they spread wide over his shoulderblades. There’s a warmth when they do that has nothing to do with the warmth of his hands themselves, everything to do with the way they rest gentle over the place his wings aren’t-- the place they would be, if they were out.

“Even if you were away a hundred years.” Crowley chuckles, bumping their noses together before sliding down, to begin paying his attentions to Aziraphale’s chest. He nips and kisses his way across the soft flesh, nuzzles at where the hair used to be-- he shall have to make a special point of flattering it upon its return-- in his efforts to leave not a single inch un-loved. He dedicates himself, works his way to one nipple where he lavishes affection until Aziraphale is writhing and moaning, until he pushes him away-- and Crowley, with one final flick of a forked tongue, lets himself be pushed.

“Crowley, Crowley, it’s too much…” Aziraphale pants. He’d lifted his head to meet Crowley’s eyes, but it flops back down to the bed. 

“I’ll be gentle with you.” Crowley promises, lays a soft kiss to the center of his chest. “Though I believe ‘too much’ is something of the point.”

“Together, though.” He says, and Crowley can only hum in agreement. Together…

He kneads at and kisses and nips at Aziraphale’s soft belly, squeezes at his hips. When he finally works his way down between those ample thighs, he bites at them-- gentle, as he’d promised to be. And there between… The effort Aziraphale has made is certainly low-profile, as he’d put it. The fat outer lips, already beginning to flush and swell with desire, hide all the treasures within. When Crowley’s tongue pushes gently at the seam of them, they part for him, revealing the rest to his questing tongue-- the shape of the inner lips and how it feels to dip between and around them all, yes, but most importantly, the _taste_ of him, the slick fluid building there, just waiting for him, and he’s so eager to taste it. He teases out the little bud of Aziraphale’s clitoris, it fits the vee of his forked tongue as if they were created for each other. He could spend an eternity there between Aziraphale’s thighs, but Aziraphale had said ‘together’, and so he doesn’t push him too far into heady pleasure, as much as he loves drinking in the taste of him and making him moan.

“Oh, Crowley…” Aziraphale tugs gently at his hair, and Crowley moves with him, slithers his way back up his body. “Crowley, Crowley-- you’ve never done that before?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re very good.”

He blushes, hiding his face against Aziraphale’s neck. “I’m glad.”

“No, really! You feel so wonderful, and you-- you take such good care of me.” He insists, and one hand remains in Crowley’s hair, the other resting over his back again. “I was in such a poor mood when you found me, and you’ve done everything to please me, you always do. It isn’t just that you’re a marvelous lover-- though, so far… oh-- But Crowley, before everything else, you’re such a loving friend to me. And you must know how I treasure that. You’re so good to me, you make me feel so taken _care_ of!”

It is the highest praise Crowley can imagine. Oh, but Aziraphale deserves it! They have both been largely abandoned here on earth, it’s rare that either of them receives direct orders. But while for Crowley that is entirely a positive, for Aziraphale… for Aziraphale, it must be painful. Not like Falling, not truly, and yet he is separated from Heaven, from all the others. They only speak to him when they want him to do something, and he always does it, and there’s never any ‘good job’ after… To make him feel cared for, when they’ve left him all alone, there is no greater honor. To be appreciated in it, it’s a heaven of their own making, greater than the Heaven he left behind him.

“You deserve it.” He murmurs, rocking his hips, sliding against the already-slick folds below, not yet entering the close heat… “You deserve the world, I would care for you all our days… I would please you, with every breath I would sing your praises, I would worship your body and feed your soul… Aziraphale, I would…”

“I know it, I know-- Crowley, I do hope… I do hope that I might love you as fully as you have made me feel loved.” He cups Crowley’s face, eases him out of hiding to meet his eyes. “You make me feel so very loved. And I love you so very much.”

“You do, you do. You make me feel… I can’t even tell you. It’s so much, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale nods, and Crowley angles his hips, sliding in at last, groaning at the close heat, soft and tight, the slickness and the texture, the overwhelming feeling of being inside Aziraphale. Nothing has felt so right to him, not in a long time-- nothing, except for hearing the esteem Aziraphale holds him in, the love he has for him. Nothing, except for the knowledge that he can bring Aziraphale pleasure, with his touch and with his words, to his body and to his heart.

They move together. Even without whatever instinct drives humans and other animals, they find an ease in chasing down mutual pleasure, in the rocking of hips and the roaming of hands, the joining of mouths. 

It is too much, it’s all too much, but when they are together, ‘too much’ is a very enjoyable thing indeed. 

After, Crowley bathes Aziraphale, heating his bathwater with a touch, running a cloth over him and wiping away sweat, slickness, stickiness. He helps him to dress, kissing every inch of him one last time before covering it. 

“Remember.” He says, as he ties the hip roll in place. “This is all artifice. The real you is beneath it all. And that creature in the mirror, radiant as she may be… she’s only a disguise for the humans. She’s not _you_ , just a mask. And before long, you’ll be able to take her off again, and when you do, you and I shall celebrate. I shall dress you again, in a new suit-- oh, yes, I shall. Cream colored silk, and velvet the color of a cloudless winter sky. And I shall take you to dine and to drink and to go to the theatre. And you shall invite me back to your bed after, if you like, or simply in to talk a while longer, to take your hand and tell you how I have missed you in a year, and how often I have thought of you. Be brave, little dove, and then fly back to me.”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale touches his cheek, his own face going pink all over again. “Thank you. I do… I do find it more bearable this time around. I-- I’m very glad you see me. Even with a mask in place.”

“Always. As you always see me.”

“Always.” He smiles. And his smile is all that Crowley needs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, told largely in letters.

“You can’t possibly be joining a convent as ‘Miss Ziraphale’, that’s never been a name and you know it, you know it!” Crowley says. The bickering has no real heat, and it’s familiar, it’s safe. If he stopped to think about his feelings now, he’s not sure how it would go, but…

Aziraphale is only going to be away a year. They’ve been parted decades. He’s being silly and he knows it, but he can still smell the morning’s lovemaking on the air even as he helps Aziraphale dress. One last desperate go, before Aziraphale had bathed and begun to prepare. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s been Fell these past… well, some years, at any rate, you know that. I-- er, that is…”

Aziraphale turns to look back over his shoulder, and so Crowley pauses in getting his headdress affixed. 

“Yes?”

“I’ll be joining the convent under the name ‘Eve’-- though I daresay they shall expect me to change it if I take holy orders, and I’m not yet sure if that will be necessary.”

“Eve? Why Eve?” Crowley frowns, and Aziraphale turns back away from him, though not so quick as to hide his soft smile, his faint blush.

“I don’t know. Perhaps because I, too, have been tempted by a serpent.”

“Yeah, well… I mean, but you won’t-- But I wouldn’t--” He fumbles. 

“You wouldn’t have me come to so unhappy an end? I know, dear. And yet… Well, I must confess, I’ve often thought-- well, a few incidences aside-- it wasn’t so unhappy, was it? She had hardships, and heartbreaks, but she had joys. She had… opportunities. Life. Looking at the world as it is, I do wonder, if--”

“If I hadn’t done the good thing?”

“And I the bad one…”

“Maybe there are no bad things. Er, I mean, there are. Loads. But… but not… But back when we-- What we did… They needed us both, to birth a world like this one. All part of that ineffable plan you’re always so keen on.”

“Perhaps so.”

His entire disguise in place, Aziraphale turns again, bringing a hand up to Crowley’s cheek. “I’d best go. I’m not… I think they won’t want me speaking to anyone from the outside world, while I’m there. But it isn’t really very long, in the grand scheme of things.”

“At least let me drive you.” Crowley offers. 

Aziraphale nods, taking his arm. Out on the street, a small black coach drawn by two large black horses awaits-- one which hadn’t been there before, but which formed itself out of Crowley’s expectation. Crowley assists Aziraphale in getting into the coach without tripping over his skirts, kissing his hand before closing the door and mounting the driver’s seat. He helps him back down once they arrive, and doesn’t let go of his hand even as they approach the convent gates where they’ll have to part.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale frowns, soft and worried. “You had better go. Before they see us.”

“Angel-- no, I know. I’m going. I-- I love you, that’s all. All this morning I’ve been wanting to say. I love you.”

“And I you. Oh, go on-- go on.”

There are nuns coming, nuns who will take Aziraphale and then Aziraphale will be inside and Crowley can’t follow, he knows, and yet a thrill takes him at the idea that he could kiss Aziraphale’s hand like this, even in front of them, he could kiss Aziraphale’s hand in broad daylight, in public, because Aziraphale is a secret between them now, and there’s no reason a gentleman couldn’t kiss a lady’s hand in farewell.

He does, and he lingers a little more over it than is proper, hearing Aziraphale’s scandalized murmur of ‘oh, my dear’ before he pulls away, and grinning as he rises. 

“That shall sustain me, for as long as it has to.” He says, drinking in Aziraphale’s blush and the way he tries not to smile as the nuns scowl. “Farewell, my angel, I leave you to your holy work. Sisters.”

He nods to them, and returns to his waiting coach, holding Aziraphale’s image in his mind as he takes himself back to Aziraphale’s rooms. He’d agreed-- at some point in the haze of making love and dressing, and going out, and going back, and making love again a couple more times for good measure before Aziraphale had no more time to waste and had to bathe and dress and leave-- to pack up Aziraphale’s things and keep them at his place, that Aziraphale’s landlady might rent to someone else in his absence. They had wistfully contemplated a home together, though it had not been a realistic dream. 

Crowley buys a building, when Aziraphale’s books prove too numerous to fit in his own rather modest set of rooms. Crowley had never owned very much, he’d never had to, but the clutter of it… Downstairs he keeps the building’s current tenant, and upstairs, he sets up a comfortable home for Aziraphale’s books. And while he’d never liked the idea of clutter… well, sometimes it feels cozier to sleep in the home he’d set up for Aziraphale, just when he goes over to dust anyway.

The letter from Aziraphale arrives at his own rooms, slipped under the door by some courier in his absence, and he falls upon it eagerly when he returns home to find it there. He takes it to his new building, which might as well be his home-- which is already more home than his own rooms-- and he opens it there with Aziraphale’s bone letter opener, and sits in the soft chair he’d bought for him to read it.

_ My Dearest Crowley, _

__ _ I am not permitted to write you but I have learned that there is a boy who makes deliveries to the kitchens here who can be paid to smuggle letters to the outside world. I oughtn’t to take advantage, I know, but I miss you terribly. _

__ _ There are things I must say to you in person, which cannot wait a whole year, but which must yet wait as I am far from completing my work here.  _

__ _ I hope that your love for me is as mine for you. I know that when I think of you, I want for impossible things, I know what can never be mine. But you have made impossible things happen before. I dream that you will make them happen for me, and that when we are together again, we will be, in spite of all things, happy. _

_ Your own loving Angel _

He can’t answer. He wishes he could. He spends more time in Aziraphale’s new rooms, his gift to him still awaiting his return. He does his best to make the place nicer, though there’s something not quite right. Still, he’s happier the more he does, the more he tries to suit it all to his absent angel. Only a year, and then… well, they’ll have eternity, won’t they?

It’s months before another letter comes, but when it does, he does the same, hurrying to Aziraphale’s waiting home to open and read it, curling up in the comfort of the brand new settee he’d put in.

_ My Darling Dear, _

__ _ They’ve permitted me to write you a letter. Oh, my love, but I don’t know how much longer I can stay here. They tell me it will be all right, and that other girls who have suffered in my state have found peace and happiness. I am told all that is needed of me is faith and patience, I hardly know how to respond. There is so much which cannot be explained. There are so many different things which I feel now, and so many worries, and so much which I was not prepared for when I came. _

__ _ The memory of our last goodbye has warmed me on many a lonely night here, and yet the consequence is yet another thing I find difficult to put words to. I do not regret a moment of our time, for all the pains caused me, and how hard I find it being parted from you at this time. I would suffer any pain gladly, for the pleasure of having known you.  _

__ _ I hardly know what to say to you, except that I love you. That I hope you can forgive me if I must choose my duty to Heaven over my love for you. Please know that it isn’t that my love for you is less, please know how desperately I still long for you, to be close to you. I dream of being in your arms, safe, every night I lie in my bed and when I close my eyes, it is your face I see, always. But I am in service to something far greater than the troubles of two poor beings such as we. You knew this when first you took me in your arms.  _

__ _ You would be in danger from my people, if I chose you. I am so afraid of how they could hurt you, my dear one, my only love. I am so afraid of what they would do to us, for what we have done together. Perhaps we are safest if I stay here now, and yet…  _

__ _ There are impossible things, my dear, and I must make impossible choices. I must make them alone. When we see each other again, I can only ask you forgive me, if they are not the choices you would have me make. If I cannot choose for my happiness, I must choose for your safety-- I should never be happy if you were not safe. There is only one consequence of our loving which could ever truly pain me, and it is the thought that you could be lost from me. All else I shall endure. _

_ Faithfully and in all love, _

_ Your own angel _

They permitted him to send a letter, and so Crowley thinks this time, he must be permitted to write back. He sits at Aziraphale’s desk-- positioned just so at the window he’d chosen for it, and set out with paper and ink. If Aziraphale had had a quill, in among all his things to be moved, it is not to be found in his desk, but Crowley manages to bring his wings out even in the rather cramped environment-- surrounded on all sides as he is by crates of books-- and he finds one feather loose enough to cut a quill from.

_ Angel _

__ _ It does me good to hear from you, my own. I wish that I could laugh for you and say let them come, let your people fight me, I should take them all one-handed-- I felt that way, when last I had you in my arms. I know you have your holy duties, I knew when I met you that it would always be the way. Those nuns don’t know a thing about faith if they think you need any more of it than you’ve always had.  _

__ _ I do miss you greatly, though I know it has not been so very long that I should complain. Would that you were in all ways mine, would that we were one… I have been in a curious mood of late, and you would laugh at me, and you would be right to laugh at me. I have been nesting. You said that you would have no more use of the rooms you used to live in, before I drove you to the convent, and so I have taken those things which you left behind. I have made a little home, in a building which I do own now, with furniture you would like, and with shelves for some books, with a copper bathtub which is new yesterday, and with a homely little kitchen, and with a wardrobe where I have put some of your old clothes, and where I sometimes go to look at them and to imagine you are coming home to me. _

__ _ Yes, yes, I know. There are more reasons than can be counted on one hand why you could not marry me if I asked it of you, and so I won’t ask it, but I don’t plan this, it only happens. I find myself putting things just so in anticipation of you. It is a cozy little nest and with pretty things within it, but it is empty without my dove. I stand in the full sun of summer and bereft of your warmth I am cold to my bones.  _

__ _ My sweet angel, there is nothing you could ever do which I would not gladly forgive. I know your heart too well. If you must choose to remain longer there, then it is the right choice. That you think of my safety was never in doubt. I think also of yours, always, and I can think of few safer places than the one you now occupy. I long for you, but you are free from any harassment from my people when you are there, and I know you worry about being in trouble with yours, if you leave. I will wait for you for as long as my life is long, there is one thing you need never worry about. _

_ Devotedly yours, _

_ Anthony J. Crowley _

It’s months again before he gets another letter, though there are months yet to go before Aziraphale finishes his year at the convent, too. This time, it miracles itself into existence right in front of him, and he has to catch it, tearing into it without ceremony.

_ Crowley _

__ _ You MUST come and get me, it cannot wait much longer. I’ve weighed the consequences of every course of action. I have read your letter daily. I think it best if I am with you. I will explain everything in person. We must keep a low profile. My mission is complete, I pray business will be as usual with my side. You must try not to attract attention with yours. Take me to your nest, I have been dreaming of it. I must be in your arms again, if you will still have me. _

_ Aziraphale _

Well. That settles things, then. Crowley sees that Aziraphale’s rooms are in order, and he sees himself in order, and then he summons up coach and horses once more, to rush back to Aziraphale’s side.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also a bit short, but hopefully after the last, a bit sweet.

Crowley leaps down from the driver’s seat of his coach, approaching the convent gates in a few long strides. 

“Hello? HELLO?” He calls out, banging on the gate for good measure until he sees one of the sisters approaching. 

“My good sir, unless there is some vital emergency, I must ask you to leave this place.” She says, in a manner he has to say he does find very in line with how he normally imagines nuns. Nuns are as much like angels as he thinks a human being can be, which is to say Crowley understands that they are occupied with doing Good, but there are about a million officious pricks for every fun drinking companion. Or something like that. 

Then again, being a demon, his interactions with nuns, as with angels, tend to be limited, and begin from a place of opposition on most major fronts. So perhaps he’s not being entirely fair. 

“I’ll say there’s a vital emergency! I’m here for--” He stops himself from just saying ‘Aziraphale’. “I’m here for Eve Fell, she wrote me a letter some time back.”

He hadn’t thought the nun’s expression could go any colder, but she manages to draw herself up even more, and though he still has a few inches of height on her, she still seems to look _down_ at him. The fact that she does so over the rims of her spectacles adds to the effect, and he wonders how she’d take it if he did the same with his… but then, she’d never go and fetch Aziraphale for him.

“Oh, she did, did she?”

“She said she’d been allowed to.”

“Yes. Took your time, did you? I do believe she wrote to tell you she would be remaining here with us.”

“Well I-- She wrote me, and I wrote her, and look, that doesn’t matter. I’ve come to take her home, and that’s that. Things are different, and she can come with me if she likes, you can’t… you can’t kidnap a person and make ‘em become nuns when they want to go. So if you would please tell her I’m here, I’ll be out of your habit.”

“I shall most certainly not. You, Sir, are no gentleman. Would you ruin this poor girl?”

Even with Aziraphale’s slight softening of the signs of age he carries, Crowley thinks ‘girl’ is a rather generous assessment, from a woman who can’t be more than forty herself. Does she call them all ‘girl’ until they take holy orders and graduate to full nun? Imagine, he thinks, calling a ninety year old woman a girl, because she’s only lately decided the nun’s life is the life for her. Then again, Crowley could call a ninety year old woman a girl, if he had a mind to. They’re all sort of children when you’ve been around a few thousand years. 

He briefly considers saying he’d ruin Aziraphale if he asked him to, maybe two or three times a night, but that would definitely go over poorly. Especially as more nuns are gathering, failing to battle their curiosity.

“Would you _please_ go and fetch A-- Eve Fell for me.” He says, making it very clear that he does not consider it a request, that he expects his order to be treated as such. “And I will gladly donate to whatever church fund as needs it. New bell tower? Widows and orphans? I’m prepared to show my appreciation for your kindness, ladies, but I am not leaving without her. You do know an Eve Fell, yes?”

He directs that to one of the other nuns, a softer looking nun. She has the sort of dreamy look in her eye that suggests she has read a romance or two before. 

“Of course we do know Eve…” She says, with an uncertain look to the others, and an uncertain smile for Crowley. “But I’m not sure if-- That is, I expect she’s with Sister Mary now and I’m sure we couldn’t interrupt if that’s the case.”

The first nun shushes her, and the group seems to have quickly divided into two camps-- most of them are in the camp which believes Crowley, a non-gentleman, ought to kindly fuck off, and they’ve closed ranks against the wrought iron gate as if to prevent any innocent young ladies beyond from catching a glimpse of him and falling to wicked thoughts. Which he supposes is rather flattering. The second camp, consisting of one young nun and two initiates, is gazing at Crowley in a manner which suggests they miss a few things from the world outside their convent. He turns a smile to one of the little novices, and he expects within the week she’ll have decided against taking holy orders.

“Do you know how long I would have to wait, before someone could let Eve know I’ve come to take her?”

“Oh! N-no, no, I don’t… she’s had to… she works indoors so I don’t think you’ll see--” She stammers, quieting as well when the others hiss at her to stop talking. 

“Yes, that’s why I’m asking one of you to let her know. I don’t mind waiting, if she’s busy. I can wait all day.”

“We will _not_ be informing her of your… presence.” The first nun tells him. Which, rude, he thinks. He’d been talking to the friendlier ones. “The last thing that poor sweet girl needs is any more trouble from you.”

“What makes you think I’m trouble?” He squawks, watching as the nun blockade exchanges smug looks. Do nuns have powers no one ever made him aware of? Do they know he’s fundamentally infernal? “Since when have I ever been trouble?”

They’ve read the letters, he thinks. They must have, before they’d have sent Aziraphale’s to him, and before they’d have taken his to Aziraphale. He’d known when he was writing that it was a possibility, and so must Aziraphale have. They’d touched on their circumstances vaguely. They probably have some idea of feuding families. But it’s not as if they’d written anything to make it sound Crowley’s fault. He racks his brain trying to think of anything he might have written that would give them the idea he was no good for ‘her’. He can remember every word of Aziraphale’s letter to him, but not his own back, outside of the broad strokes. 

“You have been trouble enough.” The first nun-- who at least seems to outrank the others here-- says very smugly. 

No wonder they all love Aziraphale, he could out-smug the best of them. Probably sits over some bible or other and radiates that holier-than-thou aura of his and they all just take him for a born nun. Nuns and angels… That’s something else they have in common, they all want to keep him away from Aziraphale. 

“She couldn’t possibly leave us now.” One of the others adds.

“She could if she wanted to.” He counters. “And she’ll want to, with me.”

There’s a bit of whispering between nuns, as they turn in towards each other only to pause and cast him sidelong looks of anxious disapproval. He catches ‘Mary says two weeks at the least’ and ‘could be another month’, ‘back to her family’, ‘between her and the Lord then’. From the youngest, a hesitant ‘honest woman’, and a derisive laugh from one of the older ones. A ‘far as I could throw him’.

“Like I said, I can wait all day.” He repeats. This time, he makes it clear that it is a _threat_.

“Hm! And no gainful employment, if he has all day to stand around and be a public nuisance!”

“And all night.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” She tuts at him.

“Men never are.” Another adds. “They don’t think about these things, you know. No consideration.”

Eventually Aziraphale would come to the gate, wouldn’t he? If he gave up on hearing word from Crowley, wouldn’t he just leave and come to him? All he has to do is wait. As it happens, he doesn’t have to wait long-- while he’s glaring down a lecturing nun from behind his dark glasses, he hears Aziraphale’s voice ring out, recognizable even with the faint alterations that make it Eve’s.

“Crowley?”

“Angel!” Crowley straightens, looking over the nuns’ heads and seeing Aziraphale, seeing his sweet face, round and pink and mostly as it exists preserved in his memory.

“Oh, Crowley-- you’ve come.”

“Has my dove been transformed into a penguin, since I last beheld you?” He teases gently. “Your carriage awaits.”

“Crowley…”

Aziraphale looks on the verge of tears, and that has the love for him welling up greater than ever in the center of Crowley’s being. His soft angel, so open in his feelings, so easily overcome and so proud to be. After all the years they’ve been on this earth, there is something hard-won in his softness. The wobble to his voice, the way his hand flutters up to his cheek and then settles back down over his heart… all these things that make Aziraphale Aziraphale, Crowley has missed so keenly in the past months. In peering through the crowd, he can just see that plump, pale hand where it rests over an ample bosom. Ampler than Crowley remembers it being, but then, he’d spent thousands of years with Aziraphale and only about a day and a night of it did Aziraphale have breasts, so he thinks he could be forgiven for not remembering his current shape as accurately as he remembers him as he usually is.

“I’m here, love. I’ve come to bring you home with me.” He nods, extending a hand through the bars. The nuns part-- some more grudgingly than others-- to allow Aziraphale to come to him.

“Oh, Crowley, I’m so sorry!” Aziraphale does burst into tears, and rushes to the gate to grab Crowley’s hand. To weep into it. 

This… this is not how he’d looked. Crowley is certain this is not how he’d looked eight months ago. He’d been round, yes-- even in a corset the roundness of him was apparent-- but he’d been a much softer kind of round. This, this protruding belly, this is not the gentle slope of Aziraphale’s belly. Aziraphale was plump and pear shaped, squishable and jiggly. The shape of him had not been altered when he put on a different sex to disguise himself for the convent, no, this…

“Angel?” Crowley snakes his other hand between the bars, and spreads his hand over this firmer, higher, more spherical Aziraphale’s belly. There is an energy which is not Aziraphale’s-- a being which is not Aziraphale. 

“I didn’t know how to tell you in a letter.” He sniffs. 

“The consequence of our last goodbye?” Crowley whispers. The nest he’d built will be woefully insufficient… He won’t have nearly as much time in building the next, but he’d best hurry and build it. He’d best make sure they have room for a baby, and privacy, so that Aziraphale can let go of this disguise and be more himself-- and so that whatever the baby is like, well… they’ll be free to figure out how to proceed. 

“Please don’t be angry with me.”

“Oh-- oh, no, dove, lamb, angel-- I could never be.” He promises, pulling Aziraphale’s hand through the bars to press his lips to the palm. “Come home with me. Let me show you how happy you make me. Let me show you all the furniture, and the bath, and-- and everything I’ve made for you. Oh, I shall have to start all over… but-- love, I have spent these months nesting for you. For…” He caresses Aziraphale’s belly, and feels a slight movement from within. “I’ve just got to build a nursery, that’s all. If only I’d known. Come on, coach is waiting. And-- and there’s cake waiting at home.”

Aziraphale takes his hand back, parting from him just long enough for the gate to open, and then he’s in Crowley’s arms, right where he belongs. And Crowley feels the strength of a hundred demons in him, as he lifts Aziraphale up and carries him across the road to the waiting coach.


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley feels an immense swelling of pride, as he carries Aziraphale up the stairs to their little nest. It may not do for when the baby arrives, but it will do for now. For… for as long as it takes him to get something else set up. After all, when the baby first comes, it won’t be moving about on its own, will it?

He really has no idea. He’s never heard of a baby angel, nephilim aside, and demonspawn, well… they’re not proper demons, they’re not like a baby at all, not really. He’s seen generation upon generation of human babies, but he can’t know what they’ll have made. But it will be helpless at first, soft, not like ordinary demonspawn-- no, Aziraphale will have some bearing on that. And anyway, demonspawn isn’t born of coupling, perhaps that’s why they’re not like children. But he and Aziraphale, they made this together. Whatever it’s like, it’s going to be beautiful.

And if it’s content to just sleep in a loving father’s arms for the first few weeks before it wants to explore the place, then it buys him some more time, but he would like to have a nice neat nursery prepared for the arrival.

“Oh-- oh, Crowley, it’s beautiful.” Aziraphale sighs, as Crowley deposits him gently upon the velvet settee, where he might survey the main room of his little flat. The settee, his desk, a handsome armchair. Bookshelves, and stacks of his other books, a little table where he can rest a teacup there by the oil lamp-- Crowley has never filled it with any oil, it merely lights up when he comes into the room and wants it to. In the window, he’s got a plant hanging to brighten the place, he’s carefully tended it. There’s a heavy soft rug and heavy soft curtains, to keep the place warm, and of course there’s a nice little fireplace. 

Crowley snaps his fingers and the fire lights, and Aziraphale’s shoes vanish. Aziraphale himself relaxes, now that he is home, his face returning to its usual self as he lets out a deep sigh. The breasts remain, though they seem perhaps a bit smaller. His hands look as they ought. And Crowley gets the linens, and a bowl of nice hot water, and a little jar of balm, and sets to work washing and massaging Aziraphale’s feet. 

“It’s all yours. Well… ours. For now! I’ll get us a little house in the countryside, with a nursery, but you’ll still have this building, to keep all your books.” Crowley promises as he works. “How do you feel, with the baby? Has it been difficult?”

“No, dear, not at all. To be honest, I feel… wonderful. The nuns chalked it up to my good character, that I should be so uncomplaining, but… I haven’t had any pains. Oh, I tire in a way I never used to, and I suppose I can feel it a bit, that I’m carrying an extra weight with me… I have cravings. But it doesn’t hurt me, not the way humans often suffer with it. It’s… it’s kept me feeling so lonely. I can feel the energy of something in me growing… not a living thing yet, exactly. Separate, but not separate. Something that, very soon, is going to be a baby.” He smiles, resting a hand over the curve of it. “A darling little baby. I hope it looks like you. Everyone always says a baby looks so like its father, but they usually just all look like babies, for the first bit. But then they grow, and… and in time it will look like both of us, I like to think.”

“Your eyes.” Crowley sighs.

“Your hair.”

“Your smile.”

“Your nose. It makes a very handsome profile, I always thought.” 

“Mm.” Crowley summons up another very minor miracle, to fetch Aziraphale’s ratty velvet house slippers, to trade his simple dress from the convent for his dressing gown. “I’ll put the kettle on and fetch that cake. I don’t suppose you’ve been craving cake?”

“ _Intensely_. A butter cake, with apples.”

“That’s just what I’ve bought.” He beams. Before rising, he scoots forward on his knees, to push open the front of Aziraphale’s dressing gown and to kiss his belly through the thin chemise beneath. “All right, my little love, you’ll get your cake. Won’t be a minute. You know… there’s a bakery just across the street from us here. Downstairs is a man who makes chairs, he rents the place out from me now, so I suppose if you ever want a new chair it would be very convenient to get one, but the bakery across the way… I think you’ll really like it. I went in to buy the cake and I thought you’d like everything in the shop. I’ll go and fetch it. You can see the kitchen later, you just keep your feet up for now and stay warm.”

For a moment, Aziraphale just smiles at him with a fond and very intense amusement, as if he’s on the verge of reminding Crowley that he’s no frail human, but he remains on the settee with his feet up in front of the fire, and enjoys the pampering. 

He brings Aziraphale a generous slice of the cake, as well as the tea service, with some cream and sugar, and the kettle doesn’t take very long-- not with an impatient demon waiting on it to boil. 

“Thank you, dear.” Aziraphale says, as Crowley fixes his tea for him, before seeing to his own cup. “Will you have any of the cake?”

“Thought you could have the rest for breakfast. But I wouldn’t say no to a little taste.” He smiles, allowing Aziraphale to feed him off of his fork. It’s a very nice cake, rich enough to feel indulgent, big slices of apple baked into it. Crowley could have the armchair, but instead he sits on the little low footstool, up beside the settee. It puts him in an easy position for Aziraphale to share tastes, but more importantly, it puts him in the best place to keep a hand on his belly. 

His gaze keeps drifting between Aziraphale’s face, beautiful and beloved, his rapturous enjoyment of the cake… and his belly, firm and round and brimming with that energy. Focusing on it now, he knows what Aziraphale means-- it’s _potential_ , it’s an energy that isn’t simply Aziraphale’s own, but it’s not yet its own being, either, not exactly. But it’s very close. He can almost feel it _becoming_. 

“I’m so glad you came for me. I know I could have left on my own if I’d needed to, but… but I’d so wanted-- I needed to see you, really. They told me I could give birth there. They even said it could be arranged… it could be arranged to send me to work in the orphanage, while I was nursing, knowing it would be difficult just to give up a baby, never see it again… but I couldn’t. Not just that I could never give our baby up, though… well, I can’t, can I? Whatever it will be, it won’t be _human_ . Humans can’t raise it. And suppose it was born looking, well, _in_ human? So I couldn’t give birth there.”

“In the countryside, in a little cottage with a nursery.” Crowley takes his hand, kissing it. “I’ll go tomorrow and find the place. I’ll go by wing, so I won’t be apart from you too long. You’ll be comfy and safe right here with all your books, and a nice stocked larder, and everything you need to be happy waiting for me. And once it’s all set up, I’ll bring you down… We’ll have a lovely little yard with fruit trees, space for a little one to play. You can move some of your books in and keep the rest here, we can travel back and forth in time, I expect. Your place here, and my place, and our place. Whenever we’ve been around too long and people start having questions, we’ll just shuffle around a bit. Move house when the neighbors get poky and then move back when they forget… You, me, and a little one.”

“I’ve no idea what it’s all going to be like, when the baby comes…” Aziraphale moves Crowley’s hand back to rest on his belly, his own over it. “But so long as you’re with me, then I’m sure it will be wonderful.”

“Would you like it, the countryside? For a while?”

“I think I would. I love London… but it will be nice to be away, to just be the three of us for now. A little cottage with a lot of space, with… with those fruit trees. Oh, I would like that. With a garden. Will we be there long enough, do you think, to keep chickens?”

“Perhaps. We can always leave them with a neighbor when we go, if it comes to that. Mm, suppose much depends on the little one. We’ll want a nice, secluded place to ourselves until it’s ready to be out in the world. I’ll find the right place tomorrow. A big bed for the two of us, a nursery--”

“Oh, Crowley, the man downstairs! Do you think he could sell us a rocking chair?”

“A rocking chair?”

“For the baby! For the nursery!” 

“If you don’t mind taking up your disguise tomorrow, you can ask, while I’m out getting the house. And I’ll see it delivered once it’s done. Or-- or I can talk to him.”

“No, no… I’ll manage. Besides.” Aziraphale’s smile takes on the most delightfully mischievous turn as he gives his belly a pat. “I think we can get a better price, if he’s selling to a mother-to-be in my condition.”

Crowley chuckles, laying a kiss there between where their hands sit. “I’m rubbing off on you, am I? Such machinations, angel…”

“We do need to learn financial responsibility now that we have a family to think of, after all.” He says placidly.

“Mm.” He settles down with his cheek resting there, feeling the slight movement of their baby moving closer to him. “Oh… hello, there. Hello, there, little one. Daddy’s here, lovey. Daddy’s going to make a lovely new nest for you. Won’t that be nice? A nice, soft place for you, and warm… A little room just for you, with a cradle, and a rocking chair, and… oh, what do kids need? Toys, kids need toys. Lots of those. Loads of toys. A tub for bathtime, a garden to play in. Lovely garden. A room for papa’s books. He’ll teach you to read when you get big. A nice fireplace to sit in front of when it’s cold, two laps to choose between, that’s nice, isn’t it? And a lovely little kitchen, and… I dunno, and windows with glass-- well, that doesn’t mean anything to you, you’ve never seen a window without glass. You’ve never seen a window at all. But trust me, it’s going to be very nice.”

Aziraphale runs fingers through his hair, and he feels like he could melt. Has anyone else ever felt a greater bliss? Crowley doubts it. Oh, he’s sure many humans, on learning of their impending fatherhood, are filled with a sort of proud and protective joy. But humans were built to propogate, they strive for it and they hold in themselves a certain expectation that their efforts will net results. Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale were really made for this, though he’s known long enough that they would both be capable of it. Rare as the case may be for angel and demon alike, he’s known it was _possible_ . But it’s never happened without a human involved before, how could he imagine it would happen for them? To be granted such happiness out of the blue… and him a demon! To have had every joy and pleasure and memory of love stripped from him, to be cast into the pit to suffer-- oh, he hasn’t suffered since, not much. He’s rebuilt something for himself, and he’s found joys and pleasures on earth, and love. But to have known the depths of despair in Hell and then to have _this_ , the contrast is immeasurable. He doesn’t think any being could be as happy as he is, when compared to the unhappiness he has known.

“Daddy is going to protect you, little one.” He whispers. “Always. Daddy is going to care for you, and protect you, and love you to pieces. You and your papa-- you’re both far too beautiful, for me and for this world, but it’s a beautiful world, too… and I think you’ll like it. I think you’ll love it.”

“And you, my dear. It’s going to love you. My _fierce_ protector, my knight… you’ll be a wonderful father.”

“Do you really think?”

“I do. I know it. You’ve already made me one fine nest-- I can’t wait to see what you build our baby.”

“A cradle, when you ask after a rocking chair, we’ll need a cradle. A basket with a blanket in it will do at first. But a proper cradle. May as well have one built for us, and you really needn’t worry about cost. Oh, Aziraphale, I’m so-- I’m so bloody _happy_ , really I am.”

“Then so am I, my dear.” Aziraphale beams. “Then so am I.”


End file.
